Adam glanced back over his shoulder and seemed to realize that Mr. Click didn’t pose as much of a problem anymore. He jogged back to us, giving the zombie a wide berth.
“Are you guys okay?” Adam asked.
“Not so much,” I said.
“What just happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did he come back to life?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did he get out of the morgue?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did he find us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was he after me?”
“Why wouldn’t he be after you?” I asked. “You’re the one who bought the doll in the first place! You’re exactly the person he should be after!”
“Still...”
“No ‘still.’ Nothing else about this makes sense, but that part does.”
Mr. Click was crawling toward us, making poor time.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” Kelley demanded. “No,” Adam insisted.
“Are you sure?”
“If I knew he was going to come back to try to kill me, don’t you think I would’ve been more nervous the rest of the evening?” “Why do you think this happened?” Kelley asked.
There was a fraction of a second of hesitation before Adam said, “Dunno.”
“Are you keeping something from us?” I asked.
Adam shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“I swear.”
“This isn’t a good time for secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“You just gave that big speech.”
“I still believe in that speech.”
“If you have anything to say, say it.”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“We won’t get mad.” (I was lying when I said that.)
“I really don’t know what happened.”
“No clue?”
“None.”
“No guesses?”
“None. I mean, it was something with voodoo, I assume.”
“I think you know something.”
“I don’t.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I’m not going to stop bugging you.”
“Then we’re just wasting time.”
“So we waste time.”
“Don’t forget that the cabdriver has the doll.”
“Dammit!”
“It’ll be okay,” Adam assured me. “The doll has to be safe, or you’d be dead, right?”
I ignored that comment. “I’ve got his card. We’ll find a pay phone and call him. Maybe since he’s had a few minutes to chill out, he’ll be in a more understanding mood.”
I had to stay calm and think positive. Ultimately, what was the driver going to do with the doll? He wasn’t going to take a hacksaw to it or anything like that. There would probably be some blackmail involved, but that was okay. At this point, I was fine with a little light blackmail.
“What do we do with him?” asked Kelley, pointing to Mr. Click.
“Do we need to do anything with him?” Adam asked. “Let’s just go.”
“We can’t leave a zombie on the street.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dangerous.”
“Like that? Who’s he gonna outrun?”
“What if somebody sees what they think is a poor, injured man flailing around on the ground and go over to help?”
“Right. Because this place has been swarming with Good Samaritans so far. It’s unbelievable how many people ran over to help us with our carjacking problem. People had to take a number. I wish we’d had those flashing signal things you get at busy restaurants that let you know when your table is ready—it was a shame that people had to stand around waiting their turn to help us when they could’ve been window shopping!”
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” said Kelley, “but I’ll admit that was kind of clever.”
“Thank you.”
“But we obviously can’t just leave him crawling around in the street.”
“Should we put a ‘Warning: Zombie’ sign around his neck?” Adam asked.
“Stop being clever now.”
“If we had a car, we could hide him in the trunk,” I said. It was kind of a dumb thing to say, because we did not have a car, and if we’d had a car, it would have saved us all of our problems from the carjacking forward. Unfortunately, sometimes your mouth opens and words come out and they aren’t the greatest words in the world and there’s nothing you can do about it except hope to do better the next time you talk.
Kelley rolled her eyes. “If we had a car, we never—”
“I withdraw my comment.”
“What if we chopped off his head?” Adam asked.
“We’re not chopping off his head!” I said.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes. My dumb comment about us having a car was a better idea.”
“He can’t hurt any innocent pedestrians without a head.” “Didn’t this whole thing start because you were scared that we’d go to jail for using the doll on him?” I asked. “We had a zero percent chance of actually getting caught for that.”
“Not zero,” said Adam.
“Zero point two.”
“Zero point six or seven at least.”
“Fine. But we at least agree that we probably weren’t going to jail for it, right?”
Adam shrugged.
“So if you were worried about getting caught for the voodoo doll, why in the world would you think there wouldn’t be a problem with dismembering him?”
“I didn’t say dismember. I said decapitate.”
“Same thing.”
“Well, sure, if you think that chopping off somebody’s arms, legs, and head is the same as just chopping off their head.” “You’re missing the point.”
“My point is that you’re accusing me of wanting to dismember an innocent man when I only wanted to decapitate him.”
“Well, we’re not doing either of them.”
“I bet if Kelley said we should chop his head off, we’d do it.” “I am absolutely not suggesting that we chop his head off,” said Kelley.
“But if you did.”
“Enough!” I shouted. “All we’re going to do is put him someplace where he won’t hurt anybody. Any ideas?”
“Let’s just drag him to the back of an alley,” said Adam. Kelley shook her head. “I don’t want to go into those alleys even without a zombie teacher.”
I looked around. “This is a little disrespectful,” I admitted, “but what about the sewer?”
“You mean flush him down the toilet?” Adam asked. “You get all whiny because I want to cut his head off, and now you’re suggesting we cut him into toilet-sized pieces?”
“Adam, think about what you’re saying.”
Adam was silent for a moment. “Okay, maybe I didn’t understand your plan.”
“We lift a manhole cover and throw him down. He won’t be able to hurt anybody down there, and if we need him, we’ll know where to find him. The worst thing that can happen is that rats chew on him.”
“You say ‘worst thing’ as if being eaten by rats wasn’t actually
the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody,” said Kelley, cringing.
“He’s a zombie. He won’t care,” I said.
“We don’t even know that he’s a zombie. He could be possessed.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s a zombie.”
“Either way, I’m not convinced that he can’t be fixed. If this happened to you, wouldn’t you want people to make sure that rats didn’t gnaw on your body? You’re all panicked about your foot, but he could wake up without a nose!”
“For the record, I’d like to say that I’ve been very easygoing about my toes,” I said. “I could be doing nothing but bawling and going ‘Wahh! My poor toes!’ but I’ve hardly mentioned them at all. So I’d like an apology.”